A Million Saturday Nights

"Nothing will kill the movies would be less pontifically extreme.
but education'"-Will Rogers And if anyone were to deny that
the movies are an art form there
A FEW YEARS ago someone would be a long tradition of great
asked William Saroyan why he moments and great films to point
went to he movies. "I don't look to; films as valid and beautiful in
for anything in a film," Saroyan the immediacy of our experience
said, "I just sit there. The thing as any art we have known.
I enjoy is the audience peacefully
worshipping." HOW THEN, does something too
But for the rest of us, for that elusive to define and too en-
faithful audience, there's some- tertaining to evaluate ensnare the
thing so very casual about going imagination of a century?
to the movies. This is the tradi- It was first able to do so because
tion of films; a few friends, a walk it "moved." From the first notions
to the theatre, and the show. The of movement as a pleasant novel-
history of the cinema does not ty, the cinema came quickly to re-
stand as a few great films, a col- alize that movement was the very
lection of innovations, and a great spirit and unity of the film.
man or two. It stands rather as a Through it all the individual arts
million Saturday nights, are changed and reworked into a
How, after all, does it happen coherent whole. As the industry
that millions of us will pay to sit developed the film became a sort
cheek and jowl with strangers in of pot pourri, an assortment of
a warm darkness, unified and traditional arts and novel tech-
stupefied by an hypnotically flick- niques, all well mixed in an in-
ering light. If anyone asked, we ventor's grab bag.
might say that we go because we This heterogeneous collection
don't feel like thinking or because can lead to a new way of looking
we do feel like thinking; because at the world, a subtle and selec-
we wish to "escape" or because tive way. But it can do this only
we wish to see people, like our- if the finished movie is a single
selves, charged with the most im- and unique thing.
probable energies. It cannot be an accumulation
of aspects each supporting the
E GO TO BE amused and to others like a crew of cripples
be frightened, to be alone and standing together. We must never
to be united with an unseen pack, be aware of any of the individual
to see lights and shadows and arts as an achievement, rather
pretty girls and to have our most what is wanted is a sy esthesia
general feelings exploited. But be- of the components into a whole.
fore anything else we would sure- This integrated "whole" must be
ly say that we go to be enter- greater than any sum of its parts.
tained,
Still we know the cinema as EISENSTEIN, the Soviet direc-
something more. When Clare E. tor, has compared the con-
Hoffman,congressman from Mich- struction of a-film to playing with
igan, announces "people desire to a child's box of tricks. Today we
think of little or nothing (at the might say an erector set, for in
movies)" we would not concur too the most direct aspect the film is
rapidly,
When Pope Pius XI, in a 1936 a mechanical and electric art.
encyclical writes, "There exists The eye, of course, is our chief
today no means of influencing the inlet for knowledge. But the cam-
masses more potent than the era does not see things as the eye
cinema" we nod basic agreement sees them. It's a cruel and soulless
although our own statement thing, that lens, wholly unselec-
tive and shockingly observant and
imperceptive at its whim. But be-
Eli Zaretsky review movies hind it stands a story, a star, a
for The Daily, melody, a director's hand and a
few notions threatening and ca-
I- -

Vitality and Courage,
Not New Techniques,
Needed in the Movies
By ELI ZARETSKY
joling the instrument, ordering miringly to the window. Sudden-
and begging it to see one thing ly, egads, he drops it! It is gone
and not to see another. for good, his life is ruined and
Like any art the cinema thrives mankind . , . doomed,
on its limitations. The restrictions
(and creation) of the camera is THE VERY ludicrousness of the
light. Every shot represents a sequence points the disparity
series of insinuating caresses of between what a film can do and
light by the director and camera- what it generally does. But it em-
man. Hence, the camera becomes phasizes, not only one way that
the audience's eye, it must "see" the cinema has expanded the
whatever the director wishes the scope of art, but also that in doing
audience to see. so the cinema is forced to deal in
exaggerations. It functions as a
BUT THE cinema is more than a whole, as a structure in which the
new use of old techniques; it explicitly subtle touch is likely to
is a revision and integration of be overlooked.
them by means of its own pecu- A more admirable instance of
liar nature. As an example of a this quality is the famous "Odessa
special resource of the film ex- Steps" sequence of the film "Po-
panding a traditional way of look- temkin."
ing at things, consider Eisenstein's Here the hungry and potentially
familiar notions of montage and revolutionary mobs of the city
creative cutting, have gathered on the long series
By the strength of its own of marble steps leading up to the
evocativeness the film must be an governor's palace. Suddenly the
art of indirect statement. In the armed guards appear at the top
movie "Potemkin" instead of film- of the steps; in perfect order they
ing a scldier as he is hitting a wo- march down, stopping only to fire
man with a saber, Eisenstein first into the mob. For them to clear
films the man alone with raised the steps might take a minute, in
saber; then the woman with shat- the film the sequence takes nine
tered glasses and a scream of hor- minutes,
ror in her bleeding mouth. That minute would be the long-
The movie has suggested the est, perhaps the last, minute of
action while the two separate many lives. The audience can feel
shots become fused in our mind. this because we are not only
shown the sequence as a whole,
THE MONTAGE is a technique we see the discreet agonies of a
of editing which expands our collection of individuals with each
awareness of time; there are mo- of these agonies an integral as-
ments that seem unbearable pect of the whole. Each separate
hours, and hours, in turn, that aspect is woven into the whole of
glide by like moments. The really the sequence as each paragraph
memorable or intense moments of would be woven into a modern
a life are soon passed; emphasized short story.
as they are in our minds, they are
over quickly in time. The camera IN ANOTHER direction the fin-
can study these moments, ex- ished movie represents a story.
panding them by selecting their Hollywood's particular treasure
meaningful aspects, chest consists of a small, carefully
Consider a science fiction se- chosen group of myths.
quence: the handsome scientist Instead of a scenario which in-
has just discovered a cure for the spires and completes vision of a
atom bomb neurosis after a cen- fulfilled movie which the film-
tury of toil (he discovered a cure workers have in mind, the movies
for senility two reels ago). There instead developed a remarkable
he stands, precious vial held ad- deftness in the elaboration and

fabulation of their s t a n d a r d
myths. These are myths which
mirror the public, they have not
been willfully created within the
industry and, as such,'they are not
easily changed.
The film can surely take its im-
petus from another medium, as it
can from a star or director, but it
must afterwards proceed on its
own terms, This is the peculiar
duty of the medium, this difficult
dissociation of cinema from the
conglomeration of parts which
comprise it. If it is to be a unique
and valuable art it must trans-
form the past arts and aspects
into a new, quite different, whole.
Another instance of the movie's
failure to use its components with
intelligence is film music.
Too often, background music is
a crutch and support rather than
a rhythm for the film. But, of
course, there is a great need for
crutches in a Hollywood produc-
tion; most of the situations which
cross those wide screens run the
gamut from deplorable to wholly
idiotic.
What, reasons Hollywood, could
save a hopeless scene fromour
total derision? When Rita Hay-
worth tells Burt Lancaster that
she is "O-Ohh-Sooo self-destruc-
tive" why don't we leave the
theatre? When Liz Taylor in-
forms Paul Newman that she is
neurotic, as if she were asking a
Grossinger waiter for a lambchop,
why does an audience sit in mute
and knowing sympathy? Gener-
ally, because there is some ex-
pressly contrived tune to prop our
fiagging attention.
THERE seem to be two methods
designed for creating a film
score.
The first adapts portions of the
established repertoire and tosses
them in wherever a scene seems
weak. On this theory most of our
early films featured long excerpts
from Beethoven's Fifth Sympho-
ny. Since then Hollywood has pro-
gressed as far as Schubert.
The other method we might call
the Handbook of Cliches tech-
nique. Here the director - a man
notorious for knowning what he
wants - will annotate a scenario
for the composer. Hence: "Two
minutes of love music" or "thirty
seconds of clashing chords" form
the composer's inspiration.
The nature of the film is con-
tinuous and organic. To break it
into a series of discontinuous
stereotypes is to defeat the me-
dium. Nor do we go to the movies
to hear music; as the Panaman-
ian composer Gerald Humel has
said, the best film music is un-
obtrusive.
Yet: Is there sentiment in a
hero's gesture? A good chord or
two will make it tragedy. Is that
declaration of love absurd? Well,
let us have a violin solo -- just to
soothe the savage beasts. And that
(Concluded on Page 15)

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